Ted Cruz laughs at those calling Tea Party extreme, says Voter ID law is needed

There is a lot of laughter going around in Texas this campaign season. First, Democratic Senate nominee Paul Sadler said that Texans laugh at Ted Cruz because of his extreme, Tea Party views. Now, Cruz says he laughs at those who call Tea Party extreme.

When speaking with Ginni Thomas of The Daily Caller, the heavily favored Republican Senate nominee said:

“There are those in the Washington, there those in the media, that characterize Tea Party as extreme and I have to admit, I laugh at that. I say, you know, it is only in the beltway, in this weird bubble of Washington that it’s considered extreme not to want to bankrupt our country. In the rest of the America, just about every American understands living within your means is basic common sense.

“If you and I ran our families, our business the way the federal government is run, we would be sleeping under a bridge. And over 80 percent of Americans are looking at Washington going ‘What’s wrong with you people?’ In both parties! I think Barack Obama has been the most radical president the country has ever seen. But an awful lot of Republicans have been complicit with the Democrats in spending in a way that is unsustainable and that’s why the American people are rising up and saying ‘Enough!'”

That wasn’t the only thing that Cruz and Thomas (the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas) discussed. Cruz also got a chance to sound off on the controversial issue of Texas’ Voter I.D. law.

“I was down in Charlotte for the Democratic convention. Mitt Romney sent me as a surrogate to present the other side of issues. To get into the DNC, you had to show a photo I.D. And yet, apparently no one told Eric Holder that,” he joked with Thomas.

Cruz later said that he is a fan of James O’Keefe, the conservative undercover documentarian who earlier this year documented how one could commit voter fraud by pretending to be Attorney General Eric Holder at the voting booth.

Cruz claims that the victims of voter fraud are exactly the minorities which the Democratic party says the Voter I.D. laws discriminate against.

“The Democratic Party uses this issue to scare minorities. Well, do you know whose votes are typically stolen with voter fraud? They have often been votes of African Americans, Hispanics, It has been the minorities that the unscrupulous political operatives prey on,” said Cruz. To make his case, Cruz said that thanks to Indiana’s Voter I.D. law, which was upheld by the Supreme Court in April of 2008 by a vote of 6 to 3, the voter participation among minorities in the state has gone up.

If one has to show a photo I.D. to get married, rent a car, buy a beer, it should not be a problem to make it part of a requirement to vote, argued Cruz.

“None of those are more important than voting. With the exception of getting married. Getting married, is. But the rest of them are not. Although after voting you might well want to get a beer,” he said.